


The Definition of Alone

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels strange to Kurt to wheel his bag into the dark apartment alone after a long whirlwind of a day full of people and noise.</p>
<p>set after 5x01 (“Love, Love, Love”), with no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Definition of Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Glee timelines and logic make no sense, and I've tried to reconcile some sort of reasonable chronology with the full awareness that it _can't_ make sense.

It feels strange to Kurt to wheel his bag into the dark apartment alone after a long whirlwind of a day full of people and noise, heart-thrilling moments at Dalton followed by the usual drudgery of travel. It’s the first time it’s been quiet around him in hours, and it’s a bit of a shock to his system to be somewhere peaceful, without so many voices echoing around him, so many people pushing at him.

He stands there in the doorway for a moment, taking it in. The silence is palpable around him. It’s not unwelcome, but it’s still strange.

Seeing the apartment so calm is also odd. He’s used to there being noise and light when he gets home, singing, laughing, and fighting, but Rachel and Santana are booked on the last flight of the night from Ohio, while he managed a standby spot earlier. There’s no one to greet him. He’s alone.

It’s probably good that they didn’t travel together, he thinks as he slides the front door closed behind himself. He was able to look out of the window and completely ignore the businessman beside him on the flight back, and he has a few more hours here without them to regain his equilibrium without being peppered with questions and comments. He could use a little time. He feels completely spun around, like he was blindfolded for ‘pin the tail on donkey’ but when he was released instead of the game he thought he was playing he found himself being serenaded by a handful of rival show choirs led by his handsome boyfriend, the love in Blaine’s eyes shining through every last barrier Kurt had kept between them.

The imagery doesn’t work, he knows, but it’s how he still feels: disoriented, a little bit terrifyingly out of control, and blinking into the unexpected brightness, blinded to everything but Blaine.

So it might actually be good that he’s alone for a little while so that he can try to get back to some sense of normalcy. He hangs his coat up on the hook and breathes in the silence for a minute.

“I’m home,” he says to himself, feeling his shoulders drop and some of the tension that’s been vibrating through him throughout his trip ease out of his muscles, but only some of it.

It does feel good to be here, but on the other hand, it’s dark and cold in the apartment without his friends, and his world has been turned upside-down. He went to Ohio in the middle of a nightmare - lonely, anxious, terrified about losing his dad, finding comfort in the simple, complicated fact of not hurting so much just seeing Blaine - and has come back to New York in the middle of a dream. He’s _engaged_. He’d kind of like his girls for company while he rides this unexpected, amazing rollercoaster of emotion.

Kurt can’t quite contain his smile as he pulls his bag directly into his bedroom; alone or not, the facts are the same. He’s engaged. To Blaine. It’s crazy but true; it’s etched into his heart even more solidly than the ring sits around his finger. He feels it deep into his marrow, a solid, sure knowledge of what this means, even if he doesn’t know how to put it into words. He feels grounded even in the tempest of the pressures of the world around them, which haven’t changed. They’re in this together. Forever.

Kurt kicks off his shoes by the doorway and nudges them aside. A bit more of his tension relaxes to be in his own personal space, and he takes another deep, cleansing breath, settling into his own skin in his home. A bit more of him returns back to a calm center after a day that shaken up his entire world and yet put it all back into the right place.

He lifts the bag up directly onto his bed to unpack, because there’s no space to have it sitting in the middle of his room and no reason for him to delay. Everything gets so wrinkled when tossed around in a suitcase. He clicks on a lamp so he can get to work unpacking, sorting, and putting away. He might not need to tap his finger on his nose at certain minutes of the hour anymore, but he does like everything to be in order.

As soon as he has the bag unzipped, though, his heart begins to flutter like a butterfly in his chest all over again, because on top, folded neatly, is his turquoise Tom Ford blazer. He pulls it out with hands that don’t quite shake and holds the luxurious fabric out in front of him for a moment. He’d like to pretend he’s inspecting it for wrinkles, but he isn’t. He’s just staring at it in amazement, and for once not because of how gorgeous it is.

Kurt stares at the blazer and wonders if he’ll ever be able to wear it again without remembering standing on those stairs, listening to Blaine propose, and feeling his heart crack with wonder and an elated gratitude at being _able_ to feel that wonder at all. He’d thought it was gone. He’d thought as he’d spent the past few weeks in Ohio and slowly let Blaine creep back into his heart for good that getting back together would simply let him be happy and in love with Blaine again. It would let him be supported and loved, content and heartache-free once more, and it was something he treasured. It was more than enough. It was everything he was missing, everything he’d tried to have with Adam and hadn’t been able to fall into. It was the pure, wonderful partnership of his relationship with Blaine, the very best of them. He hadn’t expected he’d be able to recapture the utter magic of their first time at love, after all, and that was okay. He was okay with a more mature, more grounded, still wonderful love with this man he just couldn’t forget.

But then Blaine had pulled together his friends and various show choirs and had dazzled him, utterly _dazzled_ him, and Kurt was right back to where he started in more than his body but in his heart. The proposal hadn’t erased any of their history, any of their love or their pain, but it had brought it all together in a sparkling moment of _rightness_ , and Kurt was blown away by Blaine all over again, blown away by _them_ , blown away by _love_.

He never expected it. He never thought he would get not just Blaine back but this enormous gift of the glowing dreams of the future of their first, nearly perfect love again, too.

Kurt takes a shuddery, delighted breath, shakes himself out of the memory, shakes out the blazer, and goes to hang it up. It’s a worthy sacrifice of a fabulous piece of clothing if he can’t ever separate it from that wonderful moment, he thinks.

Yes, this is all so different from how he felt when he left, when life seemed harder and darker than he’d thought it could for having so much that he wanted. And now, somehow, he’s gotten his dad’s good health, Blaine, and so much more. His whole future has been rearranged for the better.

It’s not nearly as terrifying as it should be. It can’t be, not when it’s Blaine.

Putting his hands on his hips, he turns around to face his room again and feels the not yet familiar press of the ring on his finger and the way it pulls on his heart.

No, unpacking can wait for a moment. There’s something else he has to do first.

Kurt goes over to his wooden chest and kneels down beside it, lifting the lid. Inside is Bruce, and he gives the pillow a little pat as he pulls it out.

“As wonderful as our love affair has been, Bruce, I’m afraid our nights together are numbered,” he says with a smile, which immediately turns wobbly when he really thinks about _why_. He won’t need his boyfriend pillow for too long, because he has a _fiance_ , and he’s going to have Blaine in his bed instead. He’ll be able to curl up with Blaine, in Blaine’s warm arms instead of Bruce’s stuffed one, not just for a stolen night here and there but _every night_. _Forever_.

Kurt stares down at Bruce, his fingers curling into the fabric of his fake shirt and his heart pounding.

He’s actually going to _live_ with Blaine. He’s going to marry him. He’s going to have all of the things he ever dreamed of with Blaine.

The thought rocks him back on his heels and makes his eyes sting, because obviously he agreed to it, and he wants it, but it’s real now. He looks at his hand on Bruce’s shoulder and at the ring on his finger. It’s _real_.

It isn’t a dream anymore. It isn’t the wish of a romantic, foolish boy. It’s real. He gets to have it. He gets to have Blaine and sides of the bed and joint checking accounts and warm arms around him _every single day_. He gets to have it all. He won’t need to dream about it anymore.

Kurt sets Bruce aside and digs down quickly to the bottom of the chest to the framed pictures he’d put away there so many months ago. Even at the worst of his heartbreak, he never wanted to _erase_ Blaine or throw his pictures away, but he didn’t want to see them. Now he does. Now he gets to look at his picture and smile instead of hurt.

Pulling one out and cradling it on his lap, he lets his fingertips drift over the frame of his favorite picture, the latest of them he’d had displayed, the one that was the hardest to look at when he’d taken it down.

It’s of the two of them, taken at arm’s length on Blaine’s phone while they were lying on the grass after a picnic in the park last summer. Blaine is looking directly up at the camera, his smile wide and full of sunshine the way it so often is when they’re together, the way Kurt got to see again this week, but he’d caught Kurt before he was posing, too; instead he’s just smiling over at Blaine, soft and fond, and it’s such a happy, sweet moment. It’s so simple, so them, so much of both of their hearts on their faces.

That’s why it was too much to look at it after they broke up. It made him feel foolish and lonely, lost and alone when he was trying to make sense of the fact that he wasn’t actually going to have Blaine by his side, loving and being loved, happy and together, just like they were in the picture. It made him feel hollowed out and betrayed to look at it then, all but hopeless in the face of everything he thought he had and would have with Blaine just being _gone_. And yet it had hurt to put the picture away, too, and feel the door close on that part of his life, he thought for good.

But now, now it doesn’t hurt at all, except that Blaine isn’t with him this very second. Now all of this is his again, if from afar.

Kurt might be alone this minute, still dependent on Bruce if he wants to cuddle, but Blaine will be here in the future. That changes this quiet night of solitude into something finite, not one of endless similar nights stretched out ahead of him like it was when they first broke up. He isn’t sitting here alone with no expectations of that changing; he’s sitting here alone _tonight_ , with a future stretched ahead of him where he’ll never really be alone again, where no matter what happens he’ll be doing it all with his best friend and love, with Blaine.

And he doesn’t have to be all that alone even now, he realizes, as he puts Bruce away and pops up to his feet. He places the picture of them on the table beside his bed with a satisfied smile and a little flip of his heart and then pulls out his phone.

He calls Blaine.

He calls Blaine because he wants to talk to him, and he just... can, now. He can call him without it being complicated or stirring up emotions he wasn’t sure he wanted either of them to feel. He can simply push that button and reach out to him and know it’s right, because it’s the two of them.

They’re together again. They’re engaged. He can just call. He wants to, and he can.

It feels like he’s flying, having shed weights he’d almost forgotten he was carrying at all.

Blaine picks up almost immediately. “Hi, Kurt,” he says, a warm smile coloring his voice. “Are you home?”

“Yes,” Kurt says, and he can’t stop smiling. It’s been a few days since they officially got back together, but he still can’t take for granted how _easy_ it is again between them. It was fragile for so long that the renewed strength of the connection between them is a gift he can’t ignore. “The flight was smooth, the subway was uncrowded, and for once Mrs. Grimaldi didn’t quite manage to shut the door in my face when I followed her into the building.”

“So it was a good trip,” Blaine says with a laugh. “I’m glad.”

Kurt tucks his phone between his ear and his shoulder and goes back to unpacking. “How are you?”

“Okay. Just catching up on my math homework. I’ve been kind of busy the past few days.”

Kurt laughs a little at the wry but happy note in Blaine’s voice; he knows all too well how much time they’ve spent together since their official reunion, taking what little time they could to reconnect. And as it turns out Blaine was preparing his big proposal at the very same time. “I can’t imagine how you’ve had any time to sleep with all that you’ve been doing,” he says.

“I didn’t mind,” Blaine assures him. “You were worth it.”

“I’m not going to argue with that,” Kurt replies. He puts his sky blue socks in his hamper to be washed and shakes his head with a rueful smile; he might have created a little bit too _much_ good luck with them. He doesn’t mind, not when he has _this_ again. “You certainly took my breath away with everything you did,” he tells him honestly. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Kurt,” Blaine says, and the gentle way he says Kurt’s name makes a shiver run up Kurt’s spine like Blaine’s fingers are tracing the line of his back in an actual caress. “You’re the one who said yes.”

Kurt cradles the phone to his ear and says, “You’re the one who let me.” His heart beats, open and free, in his chest, and as overwhelming as it is he can’t find it in him to be sorry for it, not for all that it’s given him. It’s given him everything, including so much he never thought he’d get back even with Blaine at his side.

“Well,” Blaine says with a breathless little laugh. “I guess we’re a good pair.”

“The best,” Kurt agrees, smiling at his suitcase for a second before continuing to unpack. He gathers up his toiletries and moisturizing kit and sets off for the bathroom. “And now it’s official.”

Blaine laughs again, this time more fully, and says, “You know, us getting engaged doesn’t automatically put us at the top of everyone’s lists of best all-time couples. Even if we totally should be.”

“They’ll learn,” Kurt tells him and tucks away his kit on the shelf before unzipping his little travel bag.

“Everyone in the world, Kurt?” Blaine asks, disbelieving but happy, and the teasing tone of his voice curls in Kurt’s chest like a contented cat, soft and warm.

Even driving up to Dalton, Kurt had felt the weight of the world on his shoulders at the thought of hurting Blaine just as he finally got him back, how raw everything felt between them because of it... and now, now he’s so far beyond that moment it’s like magic. All thanks to Blaine and his generous, romantic, optimistic heart.

As much as he knows this is a brave new world between them, more complicated than ever, Kurt also knows down to his bones that this really is forever.

“Everyone in the world,” he confirms and tucks his last bottle away with a satisfied tap to its lid. “Our story will travel. The internet is almost everywhere these days.”

Blaine lets out yet another laugh, but his voice is a little quieter and more gentle when he says, “I miss you already.”

Kurt’s steps slow as he walks through the kitchen, and he stops by the table, resting his free hand on the back of one of the chairs. He can see the ghost of Blaine from last Christmas, sitting there with hope in his eyes it had hurt Kurt to see. He can see the bright love and devotion shining from Blaine’s face that very day at Dalton. He wishes he could reach out for them both and keep them close. It hurts that he can’t. It hurts that he’s here alone.

“I miss you, too,” he says with a sigh. Maybe it’s silly to miss someone he has had again for such a very short time, but that’s why, really. He was without Blaine for so long. A few official days together as boyfriends again and a few hours of being engaged does not erase the memory of the formerly empty chasms of his heart. It just makes him ache all the more.

“But I’ll come see you soon?” Blaine says, brave and barely a question.

Kurt nods and says around the lump in his throat that’s threatening to form at how readily they are doing this again, though why he should have expected either of them to hesitate is beyond him, he says, “Absolutely. I can’t wait to show you New York properly. You’re going to love it.”

“I can’t wait to see _you_ ,” Blaine tells him. “Because no matter how much I like New York, I’m always going to love you more.”

Staring out into the middle of the room, Kurt rubs his thumb over the profile of his ring, his heart melancholy and yet somehow still singing, and says, “I love you, too.”

There’s a second or two of silence, and then Blaine asks, a little thickly, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Kurt tells him. “I just wish I could have stayed a little longer.”

Blaine hums his agreement. “But then you would have gotten kicked out of NYADA, and they’re only going to let you take a temporary leave of absence for so long when your dad isn’t sick anymore.”

“I know.” Kurt takes a breath and walks back into his bedroom, pulling the last of his things from the pockets of the suitcase and zipping it back up with a sense of bone-deep satisfaction.

He’s almost settled in. He’s back home. He can feel the city settling back onto his shoulders as he tucks away his pocket squares and ties, and it feels like an immaculately tailored coat at just the right event, instead of him always feeling in Lima like he’s still perfectly put together but pretty much everyone else forgot to dress for the moment. For all that his dad is there, for all that he has so many memories there, including some new ones, Ohio definitely isn’t his home anymore. New York is. This apartment is.

And yet... there’s something itching at him as he closes his drawer, like a forgotten tag or a misaligned seam. Something’s not right.

He looks over at the picture of Blaine on his bedside table, at the two of them, and realizes that part of his home _is_ in Ohio. Blaine is his home, fundamentally and forever, and Blaine’s not here.

Kurt feels that pull in his chest he hasn’t let himself acknowledge in months, that insistence that part of his world is missing. Part of his world isn’t here. He’s going to have to wait for it to arrive and make everything the way it is supposed to be.

He takes a slow, shuddery breath and raises his chin. It’s not going to be a return to the loneliness that has followed him over the past months of his life. This is only temporary.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Blaine asks. “Was there another reason you called?”

Kurt nods, because he might have to wait, but this time it’s even more certain that Blaine will come. Last time he thought he knew Blaine would, but this time he has the ring on his hand to prove it. They’ve both learned their lessons and made their choices, and it’s going to happen. They’re going to be together. It’s only a matter of time. It might be more time than he’d like when he’d like everything right now, but since when hasn’t he been taking a long view of his life and goals?

“I’m fine,” he says firmly. “I missed you, and I wanted to talk to you. And then I remembered that I can now. I can just call. So I did.”

“You could have before, too,” Blaine says. The words come out slowly, like he’s not quite sure if he should bring up the subject.

“I know,” Kurt says. “But that was complicated, and it could hurt us both.”

“Kurt - “

“No, it’s okay, Blaine, because now I’m _supposed_ to again. So I’m just fine. I’m great.” Kurt feels his joy start to warm in his chest again, and his smile spreads across his face, jubilant, because he may be alone tonight, but it’s no longer at all the same as being lonely. “I’m wonderful, actually.”

“You are,” Blaine agrees easily, so sweetly, like he's been waiting for so long to get to say things like that.

Kurt grins at the picture, at Blaine’s beautiful, smiling face looking right out at him. That face is for him again, even if it’s on the other end of the phone. It won’t be that far away for all that long. “And I’m engaged, in case you hadn’t heard.”

Blaine laughs again, almost giddily. “To me!”

“To you.” Kurt cradles the phone to his face, and as much as he wishes he were holding Blaine’s hand instead he knows he can do this, too.

Maybe he should be conscious of all of the ways things could go wrong again, but on that staircase he’d looked down at Blaine’s face and all of the love in it and had been caught right back up in the wonder of the fairy tale Kurt had once thought he’d been dropped into when he’d met Blaine. Blaine had given him that wonder right back. He knows their happily ever after won’t be without bumps along the way, but suddenly he is going to have it again.

They will, together.

Kurt zips up his now empty suitcase and tucks it into its place under his bed. “I’m going to make a cup of tea,” he says as he straightens up. “You should make one, too, and we can Skype and tell each other all about our days. It can be our new evening routine.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, and Kurt’s grateful that he doesn’t point out that they saw each other a few hours ago and had been together for the most important event of the day. “Give me five minutes to finish this problem first?”

“Oh,” Kurt says, stopping at the edge of his doorway. His heart falls as he sinks back to reality. He looks out into the dark living room area of the loft and tells himself not to be disappointed. He can catch up on his TV without Santana and Rachel heckling his choices. “I’m sorry. You have homework. You should do that. We can talk tomorrow.”

“No, it’s okay. Let me just finish this problem. I like the idea of this routine,” Blaine says.

“If you’re sure. I don’t want to get in the way of you getting into college here.”

“It’s fine,” Blaine tells him. “I want to.” He hesitates for a second, his voice going softer. “And maybe it’s something we can keep doing when I’m there, too.”

The hair on Kurt’s arms stands on end at the idea, images flashing before his eyes.

He imagines their future and thinks of tea at the kitchen table here in the loft with Santana watching TV and Rachel singing scales around them, in their own tiny first apartment with their schoolwork spread out on the coffee table in front of them, on the balcony of their perfect larger future apartment with maybe an extra bedroom or two if they want to start a family... He thinks of Blaine across from him wearing summer polos and winter sweaters and getting glasses someday and some salt in his dark pepper hair and having a ring on his finger, too. He thinks of new mugs for special holidays and fancy teas and delicious little cookies or, oh, beautiful macarons.

He thinks of the two of them sipping tea and talking, night after night, year after year, sharing their lives together.

“That sounds _perfect_ ,” Kurt says to Blaine, soft but absolutely sure.

“Okay,” Blaine says breathlessly.

“Okay,” Kurt replies, and it feels like yet another promise, another block they’re placing together on this life they’re building. He holds the phone to his ear and breathes slowly around the huge bubble of happiness in his chest. They’re really doing this. Both of them, all the way, all in, all the love and romance and devotion and care, all of it, forever.

“Go put the water on, Kurt,” Blaine says after a long, satisfied moment. “I’ll be right there.”

Kurt spins around to grab his laptop and hurries toward the kitchen on feet so light he’s barely touching the ground.

The kitchen is dark, but as he flips on the lights the quiet around him no longer seems lonely; it’s just temporary. Rachel and Santana will come home, and Blaine will be here soon, too. Blaine’s already here on the other end of the line. Blaine’s fixed permanently in his heart, in his life, and looking ahead at the same future he is.

Kurt might not be with him right now, but he’s not without him, not anymore.

“Take your time,” Kurt tells him, opening up his laptop before reaching for the kettle. “I’ll be waiting.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am spoiler-free! Please don't spoil me about anything that's coming ahead! <3


End file.
